At the Monetary Policy Meeting held today, the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan decided upon the following. The Bank decided, by a 7-2 majority vote, to set the following guideline for market operations for the intermeeting period.

The short-term policy interest rate: The Bank will apply a negative interest rate of minus 0.1 percent to the Policy-Rate Balances in current accounts held by financial institutions at the Bank.

The long-term interest rate: The Bank will purchase Japanese government bonds (JGBs) so that 10-year JGB yields will remain at around zero percent.

With regard to the amount of JGBs to be purchased, the Bank will conduct purchases at more or less the current pace -- an annual pace of increase in the amount outstanding of its JGB holdings of about 80 trillion yen -- aiming to achieve the target level of the long-term interest rate specified by the guideline.